Madeleine
by Miksi's whiskers
Summary: What if Emily really didn't die?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Madeleine was happy. She had finished high school a year ago, she had a loving boyfriend and she had moved out. She was happy, but not quite content.

For almost all her life, Madeleine had been a ward of the state. In other words, an orphan.

She had no memory of real family, just kids she had gotten to know. Sad kids who were whisked away as soon as they started to get along. Madeleine was never adopted. At first when she was admitted, they were scared to give her to a new family because at the time she remembered nothing. She was found at the side of a country road. Just a little toddler. A little toddler who remembered neither her name or whether she had a mommy or a daddy…

Of course, they tried for several years to find her parents but by the time she was about eight years old, they gave up. Unfortunately, most people don't want to adopt an eight year old who had previous mental problems no matter how intelligent or cute she was.

So she stayed in the orphanage and coped with it. She studied very hard, and being a highly intelligent child as she was, got straight As in school. Skipping a few grades, she started high school at the approximate age of twelve, got over 90% in all her classes and graduated with an average score of 97.5% at the age of sixteen. She had done her MCAT half a year later, aced it and got early acceptance into Harvard Medical School- she was on the yellow brick road to a hugely successful medical career! She finally got to move out and make herself a stable life…

An apartment of her own, university, a job, her boyfriend…

Only one thing was missing from her picture of a perfect life; parents. People who you visit on the weekend, who call you to make sure you're okay, people who will always stick by you and never go away...

Madeleine had often dreamt about what her parents would be like, in her head her father was a man of average height with an easy smile, brown thinning hair and glasses who was very passionate about cartography. She pictured her mother as a smaller woman with straight, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. Just like Madeleine.

Maybe her mother liked to sing, or maybe she was a good cook, or maybe she liked to sing and cook at the same time even if she wasn't good at either and knew it. Maybe her father liked to hike, maybe her mother liked to go to the ocean… Her ponderings were endless.

What else would an abandoned child think about but her parents? There was one thing that she would try never to think about; the possibility that she had no parents.

Over the years, she had started to think less and less about her parents and increasingly more about her studies and love life. She had in other words, given up hope of ever finding the one thing she longed for most in the world.

.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Madeleine was walking next to the canal in Ottawa, Canada. It was spring and she was coming home from teaching a children's workshop at the nature museum. It was one of the first truly warm days of May and she was enjoying the breeze blowing through her hair.

The air smelled of tulips and fresh grass.

At moments like this, she felt like everything was right. It was about 7:30 pm but the sun hadn't set quite yet, the cyclists and roller-bladers had gone gone home for the day so she was relatively alone. It was her and the ducks. She had just stopped to look at one when her cell phone rang.

She looked at the caller ID and realized that it was the people from the orphanage.

'Great…', she thought, annoyed. 'Checking up on me again. Making sure I'm not on drugs or something…'

She picked up, 'Hello, may I help you?'

The voice on the other end replied, 'Madeleine, we think you should probably hear this. We found something…'

'Yes?' Replied Madeleine, now excited.

'We think we may've found a relative of yours, Madeleine!'

'YES?'

' You'd better come to us yourself. We'll explain. It's very complicated.'

Madeleine agreed, totally ecstatic, and hung up.

Losing no time, she dashed along the canal until she got to her street, then darted up to the door of her apartment, unlocked it and burst in through the door.

'Maddy, are you alright?' Asked her now-frightened boyfriend, Robert.

'I got a call, Rob' she replied in an odd voice, 'from the orphanage.'

'And…' Prompted Robert.

'They think they found someone, a- a relative of mine, they didn't specify who or where or how but there's someone!'

'What are you going to do?' asked Robert, a bit fazed now.

'I'm going to meet with the people from the orphanage! They're going to tell me about this!'

'That's great news, Maddy! Now how about we eat and then tomorrow we'll go out there together since it's a Saturday?'

She agreed, they ate a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs then went to bed, but Madeleine couldn't sleep. She was too excited to sleep.


End file.
